


Come Home

by girl_wonder



Category: Practical Magic (1998)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Aunts open a bed and breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penintime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penintime/gifts).



_Sally, Sally, quite contrary:_

The Owens’ House Inn opened with little fanfare a few weeks after the new year, and it was only when the lesbian couple that was buying half her stock of mint lotion said they were staying at the most “adorable old house – looks like it has most of the original fixtures and right on the water. Owens’ House, do you know it?” that Sally catches on.

There are four cars parked out in front of the house when she comes up the walk, her shoes crunching on gravel, and she can see a few friends sharing a bottle of wine in the gazebo. They’re loud from where she’s standing, but she can’t make out what they’re saying, just the sound of happiness punctured with laughter that bubbles across the yard.

The Aunts haven’t changed the yard at all, but when she steps inside, she can feel a difference. An echo of new people on the stairs, a table just inside the door that serves as a front desk.

In Aunt Frances’ careful calligraphy, a framed note states, “Be Back Soon. Please Wait.” No computers, but an old fashioned guest ledger with a leather cover and thick cream pages. Answering the bell over the front door, Aunt Jet bustles in from the kitchen a smile on her face.

“Sally!” she says, delighted. “Frances, Sally’s here!” 

Frances comes in from the kitchen, a smattering of flour on her cheek, and she pulls Sally into a hug before she says anything else. “What’s wrong, honey?” 

“Oh, you,” Aunt Jet says, gently nudging Aunt Frances out of the way. She smells the same, like cloves and honey and something that neither Sally nor Gillian have ever been able to explain but she knows that Kylie and Antonia smell like it, too.

“I heard you opened an inn,” Sally says, when she’s finally released.

“Yes,” Frances says and walks back to the kitchen, leaving Sally to follow and Jet to bring up the rear.

“Is it money?” Sally asks. “The store is doing really well since Kylie helped with the website-“

“Oh, no,” Jet says, patting Sally’s hand on her way to fill a kettle. Frances is finishing loaves of bread, her hands slapping the dough and kneading it into the shape she wants before sliding it onto a baking sheet to rest.

“Since the girls are away at college,” Jet says, settling on the stool next to Sally. “And since you and Gary aren’t having any children...”

“Bridget!” Frances snaps and gives her a pointed look.

“We decided we like having people in the house!” Jet says, defensively.

Frances nodded. “Well, there’s breakfast started. Margaritas?”

By the end of the evening, two of the guests have joined them and Sally is teaching them – a British exchange student and his Australian companion – how to perfectly salt the glass. She wakes up in an empty bedroom and is pleasantly surprised by the fresh French toast breakfast.

Frances smiles and Jet leans over, “We just like company, dear. You don’t need to worry about us.”

* * *

_This is the way she folds her hands_ :

It’s a slow week, and so it’s notable when a guest doesn’t come out for breakfast. Normally, during busy times, Jet is too busy rushing back to the kitchen for second platters of eggs, for more English muffins. However by day two when neither of them have seen her and the maid has said the “Do Not Desturb” note is on the door again, Jet goes up with a tray and taps on the door.

“Mrs. Lawson?”

There’s a shuffle and the sound of something heavy dropping to the floor.

The door cracks open, and Jet says, “Thought you might be hungry,” nudging the door open before their guest can say anything. She bustles past the pile of bedding on the floor and the pillows stacked into the nook under the window. 

The tray is full of Mrs. Lawson’s favorites: fresh fruit, buttermilk pancakes, cranberry juice. 

“Thanks,” the woman says, her voice a rusted gate opening.

Jet picks up the blue urn before the guest can stop her. It had dropped from the window as the woman had gone to get the door. Jet examines it, the smooth shined sides and the golden lattice pattern over the China blue. She turns it so that the light catches it and it lights up, nearly glowing.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jet says. She looks and the woman is younger than she remembered from two days ago: maybe thirty on the outside. If she’d been there with a husband instead of his ashes, she would have been mistaken for a newlywed.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Mrs. Lawson says. She sits on the bare bed and rubs at her face with her hand. “Sorry, I must have been making noise-"

“What was his name?” Jet asks, quietly and then an hour later, when Mrs. Lawson (Carol, now) finishes telling her, prompts again with, “And what will you do now?”

Frances comes up a few hours later with another tray of food and at that point the two of them are sitting at the only table in the room, the reality of all the years she wouldn’t have fading from Carol’s eyes. She stays an extra week, spreading his ashes on the last day.

“Call when you get home,” Jet says, and Carol leaves with enough tea for a year and then some.

* * *

_Three bags full_ :

“So, I said, ‘Just buy _all_ of them!’ I bought all of the foals just to get the one worth something!” He laughs so loud it shakes the table and his girlfriend smiles, but it looks more like a wince. “We spent a fortune breaking him, but if you want a triple crown you have to be willing to throw in some cash! And he hasn’t owned a horse since! That’s what you get when you don’t sell to me.”

“What did you do with the rest of them?” Frances asks.

He shrugs. “I think we managed to sell most of them for a profit, once people knew who their sibling was.”

“To whom?” Frances pushes and watches as he raises a hand and his girlfriend’s smile goes even more brittle.

“Listen, when you have as much money as I do, you don’t keep track of who buys every broken pony you own-“

“Broken?” Frances asks. She is sitting at the table closest to theirs and she’s noticed that the other breakfasters are staring. But she’s an Owens and is used to that.

“Well, I didn’t know which one would be worth his weight when we started, did I?” His eyes have taken on a glint that Frances doesn’t like, and she gestures with her fingers towards his greedy mouth.

“You can leave,” she says, quietly. “She can stay.”

It’s not quite a spell - it doesn’t have the energy behind it - but it startles him and before he can speak, Jet’s handing him his bag and he’s out the door. When the noise has died down and he’s killed enough of their flowers under his tires, the girl asks, “What happened?”

“You broke up with him,” Frances says. 

“I did?” the girl asks.

“Yes, of course you did. You didn’t like him,” Frances says. 

It’s true in the girl’s bones, but afterwards in the kitchen, tossing out the leftover tea, Jet sniffs it and says, “Sweet Flag?” 

“She’s better off,” Frances says, opening a bottle of wine she promised the girl.

“Sally wouldn’t like it,” Jet says.

“And what do you mean by that?” Frances asks, pouring herself a glass. “Don’t use Sally, Jet. What do you want to say?”

“You didn’t have to use Sweet Flag! We could have just asked her if she wanted to leave.” Jet finishes washing the pot and sets it in the drying rack.

“And when she said no?” Frances asks. “Then what? Let her leave with him?”

Jet’s mouth is unhappy and she goes quiet. “You think he was like Jimmy.”

“You did, too, he reeked of it. More money, more power, but he’s mean the same way,” Frances whispers the last. 

Jet inhales and breathes out. “Well. Just don’t make a habit of it. We can’t afford all of our guests leaving halfway thought their stay!”

“Wine?” Frances asks, offering over her glass. Jet smiles ruefully and they go out to the sun drenched porch to console the abandoned girlfriend.

* * *

_Sugar and spice and everything nice_ :

“You look...” Jet stops and forces a smile, and Gillian can’t tell or doesn’t want to ask and then Sally’s there, her hair in curlers but she’s wearing her blue maid of honor dress.

“Oh, Gilly,” Sally says. “You look just like mom.”

And they’re crying and hugging and then Frances has her arm around Jet’s shoulders and Jet isn’t crying, but there are a lot of tears anyway, and Kylie bursts in.

“It’s almost time!” she shouts, the grin on her face breaking them all out of the emotional quicksand they found themselves in.

“Come here, you,” Gillian says and she’s swinging Kylie around her, both of their dresses spinning.

“She’ll be happy,” Sally says, quietly, but it sounds like a question.

“Of course,” Jet says. “She loves him.”

Sally looks sad and then hugs Kylie when she spins into her arms.

Then they’re all downstairs, and Gillian is suddenly so still that Jet has a moment to wonder if she was wrong, if she won’t be as happy as she seems. But Gillian just hugs her suddenly, tightly. 

“Thank you,” she says, then reaches out and hugs Frances. “Thank you so much.”

She’s out the door before they have to think of something to say, so Jet just puts her hand into the crook of Frances’ elbow and goes to sit down.

“They’ll be so happy,” Frances says, quietly. She looks up to where Gillian stands with her groom, a little older but so much wiser.

“I think we all will,” Jet says.

 _End_.


End file.
